If you've got Deep Focus I think it's called (it heals two but takes longer) and that one that gives you soul when you take damage that should give you a bit more endurance

I actually really appreciated the respawn points as very telling that the puzzle was actually the entire sequence not just a single tricky jump at a time, it made me feel strangely close to the designer. OTOH I also found a good charm set pretty early so didn't really have to redo whole sections which I can imagine being a lot more frustrating

A pro-tip for at least parts of that area: If you have obstacles with a clear enough vertical edge (vertical lines of spikes, immobile sawblades, or sawblades moving vertically), you can maneuver next to them and then repeatedly down-swipe your needle to stay relatively stable. This allowed me to get better timing for some nasty jumps, and even let me sequence break some others (by gaining more height than was intended).

And there's this charm that was mentioned above that basically lets you sustain health indefinitely if you do it right. The general area to look for it is South of Kingdom's Edge.

This game is freaking huge! After getting the key movement abilities I was floored at how many areas opened up, as I speak I have like 4 different directions I could go in (that are obvious, at least) to explore entirely new areas.

Spoilers for about 12 hours into the game: The tone shift this game goes through is insane. I just got my first of the 3 dreamers, from the southwest corner of the map, and then went back to the first area. This went from a cute bug adventure game to absolutely horrifying stuff.

I'm really glad I picked this one up, it doesn't seem to be getting much attention, which is a shame because it's really great so far!

This game is freaking huge! After getting the key movement abilities I was floored at how many areas opened up, as I speak I have like 4 different directions I could go in (that are obvious, at least) to explore entirely new areas.

Spoilers for about 12 hours into the game: The tone shift this game goes through is insane. I just got my first of the 3 dreamers, from the southwest corner of the map, and then went back to the first area. This went from a cute bug adventure game to absolutely horrifying stuff.

I'm really glad I picked this one up, it doesn't seem to be getting much attention, which is a shame because it's really great so far!

The story is fascinating because while you can infer a lot of stuff early, it does actually explain everything eventually. What do you make of what you've seen thus far? I'm curious as to your thoughts at this stage in the game.

The story is fascinating because while you can infer a lot of stuff early, it does actually explain everything eventually. What do you make of what you've seen thus far? I'm curious as to your thoughts at this stage in the game.

Can't say I understand much at this point, lol. I'm never good at piecing things together in these games on my first playthrough. What I do know is that whatever's inside that Black Egg is really, REALLY bad. And the gradual shift towards disgusting, nightmarish creatures in bleak environments as you go further down, along with the surprise when you revisit the forgotten crossroad, is really well-executed.

Also Miner Kid was the best and when he went Hollow it broke my heart into pieces

Can't say I understand much at this point, lol. I'm never good at piecing things together in these games on my first playthrough. What I do know is that whatever's inside that Black Egg is really, REALLY bad. And the gradual shift towards disgusting, nightmarish creatures in bleak environments as you go further down, along with the surprise when you revisit the forgotten crossroad, is really well-executed.

Also Miner Kid was the best and when he went Hollow it broke my heart into pieces

Yeah, the miner going crazy made me real sad too. If it doesn't make someone sad, they have no soul.

Well I had intended to getting around to playing this game, but instead I'm stuck in an endless "preparing to launch Hollow Knight" loop that the only advice I can find regarding fixing it is reinstalling, which didn't work.
Setting it to the beta build, despite there not being any that I can tell seems to have fixed it.

One complaint I do have about the game is that the punishment for falling into spikes/acid sometimes becomes way harsher all of a sudden. I wouldn't mind it if it were consistent, but it isn't. In some rooms you'll reappear right near where you fell, in other rooms you'll just be plopped down back at the entrance to the room. It can be a bit irritating.

Also the performance isn't too good, frame drops are pretty frequent even on the lowest graphical settings and that often leads to getting hit by things.

I'm afraid there's not much more to say than practice and get better. I figured I want max nail DPS, so my load-out of choice was max-length nail with increased attack speed. Don't underestimate that the "width" of your attack also increases with the length. I think my last notches were used to increase invulnerability time after getting hit.

Note that there are points in its pattern where, even if you're not sure of the exact arrangement of projectiles/beams, you can start healing up with a high % of being able to finish the channel. There's of course a chance he'll be hitting you, but more often than not you'll get away with it (or, if you get hit, you'll get hit after finishing the first channel so you come out even)

The method for approaching most of its attacks should be pretty evident. Dashing is your biggest friend. If you're about to fall into a physical projectile try to down-slash (I get that that may not be the most natural reflex, but it's worth a shot to try to keep it in mind).The mistake I found myself making most commonly was getting greedy and trying to land hits when he spawned those individual homing projectiles. Those are more agile than you think, and you should focus on just dodging.

Finally, just in case you haven't witnessed all of its stage transitions so far. I'm pretty sure the screen won't actually move up without you (or if it does, you have a lot of leeway). So if you see the screen starting to move upwards, don't panic.

Yeah, those are good tips. I'd add that the Fragile Strength charm is somewhat frustrating because the Radiance fight doesn't count as a dream fight so it'll break if you die but it is incredibly useful since you only have to hit her almost half as many times. So once you're comfortable with the attack patterns trying that might help a lot, only be prepared to make the repair trek if you lose The (upgraded) Shriek spell also hits multiple times, although it doesn't get Fragile damage, so building around spell damage might be a decent idea to try too

It's funny, you have so many possible charm setups for different styles of attacking but all I ever wanted was a way to stop sucking at dodging laserbeams...

Thanks for the tips, I finally beat him. The setup I used was Grubberfly's Elegy since I found it way easier to fight him if I could hit him from the ground in the first phase and not have to get right up on him in the second, the two lifeblood charms so I would have the maximum amount of health to lose before I lost my sword beam, and Quick Slash because I always use it. I had a really good first phase and managed to enter the second with some of my lifeblood, and took him out without losing my beam.

I get up to the knight and his mount miniboss and then get wrecked. I'm guessing I should just dodge through the mount charges instead of trying to dodge over since it practically always ends horrible. The knight has a super wonky bullshit hitbox. On a side note, I've actually been finding glowing womb really helpful. Your explodey little spawn actually contribute appreciable chip damage and cost very little soul.

I'm not the only one having framerate problems, am I? The third coliseum is terrible for me because the frame rate dips every time enemies are being spawned in and the game keeps eating my inputs as a result

I'm not the only one having framerate problems, am I? The third coliseum is terrible for me because the frame rate dips every time enemies are being spawned in and the game keeps eating my inputs as a result

I haven't had framerate issues at all and my PC is midrange, I think it might be more of a driver thing or the like unless your specs are really low. What graphics card are you using?

Yeah I had no framerate drops at any time. My computer is solid but it's a couple years old and was solid but not top-of-the-line components when I bought it. For reference, it's a i5-4670K (3.4Ghz, no overclocking), 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 760.

Odd that this game didn't have a thread for so long after release. Everything about the art direction, world and gameplay was top notch. Had a lot of fun getting the "true" ending and I know there is a bunch of stuff I missed.

Found the problem, for some reason the game was changing the resolution back to the higher setting without telling me. Futzing around with windowed mode made it better. Still not perfect but I think it's just that Unity isn't a great engine.

I'm not the only one having framerate problems, am I? The third coliseum is terrible for me because the frame rate dips every time enemies are being spawned in and the game keeps eating my inputs as a result

There are a couple situations that will reliably cause the game to drop some frames for me. Killing those orange goobers that drop rancid eggs is one, and getting a lot of Geo on the screen all at once can do it too, but it can also happen mid-combat and that usually means I get hit. My computer's a few years old but should definitely not be struggling on that.

Got the true ending! 93% in 27 hours. The optional area and final boss were quite tough, but not as nightmarish as people in this thread seemed to be suggesting. The only thing in the game that I felt was ridiculously hard was the third arena challenge, I walked away from that after dying many times to the section where they force you to do like a dozen waves without any platforms to stand on.

So, was there a parry mechanic that the game never explained? I noticed that on some bosses, like Hornet, my character would hit them and cause a louder sound to play, with a slowdown for emphasis, and then the boss would be stunned. I think it was happening because I hit them preciselynright before they did an attack?

This game was extremely good, probably my favorites "Souls-like" game so far. It reminds me a lot of Symphony of the Night in how big and imposing it was with so many directions to go in, but unlike Symphony of the Night this game also has really good room/level design! It's crazy the amount of content that was put in this game that is completely missable. The music an atmosphere was on point, the combat and really just the movement on its own was incredibly fun, it was all great stuff.

Some little nagging complaints I have:
-Spikes. Spikes have this really weird behavior where they seem to suck you into their hitboxes when you get too close. The game freezes for a moment when you take damage, but for some reason it seems to "prepare" for when it seems you're about to take damage, and start the freezing effect early? It's really weird but there were plenty of times where was clearly above the spikes but then my character froze and apparently teleported into them. It got pretty irritating after a while.
-Speaking of which, this game has too many mechanics where the game freezes for a moment for emphasis, which can mess up the flow of combat pretty easy. Getting hit once tends to snowball very easily because of this fact, especially in the Colisseum.
-Stagway placements aren't great, there's a lot of running back and forth that needs to be done for prime real estate locations that you'll be visiting several times, like the blacksmith and most of the lower parts of the map. I had to drop down that same path down from the City to the Basin so many drat times...
-Apparently there's an achievement for getting 100% in the permadeath mode, and the Coliseum is included in 100%? Jesus loving Christ.

That's all, really. This game turned out to be a real gem, it was a nice surprise. Really should be getting a lot more attention than it is.

Got the true ending! 93% in 27 hours. The optional area and final boss were quite tough, but not as nightmarish as people in this thread seemed to be suggesting. The only thing in the game that I felt was ridiculously hard was the third arena challenge, I walked away from that after dying many times to the section where they force you to do like a dozen waves without any platforms to stand on.

It gets worse! There's a miniboss fight after that which has just been completely decimating me. It has so much health and a really weird hitbox on one of them (it's two enemies). I'm sure that's like, only halfway too. The arena fights are way too long.

My solution to the 3rd arena challenge was mostly the hiveblood charm and just leaving one enemy alive at the end of a "wave" to regenerate my hitpoint if I was missing one.
Also, screw this flower quest, why is there an awkward spike jumping area literally right before the grave.

Got the true ending! 93% in 27 hours. The optional area and final boss were quite tough, but not as nightmarish as people in this thread seemed to be suggesting. The only thing in the game that I felt was ridiculously hard was the third arena challenge, I walked away from that after dying many times to the section where they force you to do like a dozen waves without any platforms to stand on.

So, was there a parry mechanic that the game never explained? I noticed that on some bosses, like Hornet, my character would hit them and cause a louder sound to play, with a slowdown for emphasis, and then the boss would be stunned. I think it was happening because I hit them preciselynright before they did an attack?

This game was extremely good, probably my favorites "Souls-like" game so far. It reminds me a lot of Symphony of the Night in how big and imposing it was with so many directions to go in, but unlike Symphony of the Night this game also has really good room/level design! It's crazy the amount of content that was put in this game that is completely missable. The music an atmosphere was on point, the combat and really just the movement on its own was incredibly fun, it was all great stuff.

Some little nagging complaints I have:
-Spikes. Spikes have this really weird behavior where they seem to suck you into their hitboxes when you get too close. The game freezes for a moment when you take damage, but for some reason it seems to "prepare" for when it seems you're about to take damage, and start the freezing effect early? It's really weird but there were plenty of times where was clearly above the spikes but then my character froze and apparently teleported into them. It got pretty irritating after a while.
-Speaking of which, this game has too many mechanics where the game freezes for a moment for emphasis, which can mess up the flow of combat pretty easy. Getting hit once tends to snowball very easily because of this fact, especially in the Colisseum.
-Stagway placements aren't great, there's a lot of running back and forth that needs to be done for prime real estate locations that you'll be visiting several times, like the blacksmith and most of the lower parts of the map. I had to drop down that same path down from the City to the Basin so many drat times...
-Apparently there's an achievement for getting 100% in the permadeath mode, and the Coliseum is included in 100%? Jesus loving Christ.

That's all, really. This game turned out to be a real gem, it was a nice surprise. Really should be getting a lot more attention than it is.

I don't think the boss stun thing is any kind of parry. It's probably more like running the boss's poise down to zero, if we're using Dark Souls analogies.

There is actually a kind of parry mechanic in the game, though. If you attack into an enemy swing with the right timing, the strikes cancel out. I found it pretty useful when dealing with mantises, and to sneak in an extra pogo stomp against the Lost Kin (you can bounce off his wild overhead swings to avoid damage).

As I said before, Nailmaster's Glory is extremely useful in the platform-less segment of the trial of fools.

One Hundred Monkeys fucked around with this message at Apr 30, 2017 around 08:04

I'm pretty terrible, which meant that it took me something like three hours to defeat Hornet the first time (partially because I failed to discover the Stagway station and trekked from a much further bench to get my rear end handed to me each time, and partially because I foolishly thought her battle cries were attack cues, but it was her animations I should have been watching...), and getting the worst ending took me over 40 hours (though I did have 80% completion, so I did see a bunch of stuff on the way).

I loved it though, even when it was brutalizing me with boss battles. I think because it was generally fair -- if I paid attention, learned the tells for the attacks, patterns, etc, I could eventually win through. And I could explore and find more charms and mask fragments and such to help offset my awfulness as well.

The art and music and animation and level design were just fantastic. A tiny thing -- you sit on a bench to rest. The first two or three you see are this particular metal wire bench. But there are *tons* of different style benches throughout. I also love the little signs pointing out dwellings, stagway stations, benches, etc. And the bug-speak voice clips... "Ahhh, bapanara."

I do sort of want to finish up through the "good ending" but am dreading some of the endgame content. Meanwhile, having defeated The Collector, my map is marked with a bunch of grubs to rescue, bringing my attention to areas I missed.

Got the true ending! 93% in 27 hours. The optional area and final boss were quite tough, but not as nightmarish as people in this thread seemed to be suggesting. The only thing in the game that I felt was ridiculously hard was the third arena challenge, I walked away from that after dying many times to the section where they force you to do like a dozen waves without any platforms to stand on.

It gets worse! There's a miniboss fight after that which has just been completely decimating me. It has so much health and a really weird hitbox on one of them (it's two enemies). I'm sure that's like, only halfway too. The arena fights are way too long.

Friends! Have faith in the downward nail-swipe, and it shall reward that faith tenfold!

I found it extremely useful in the "no floor" sections of the arena, to make it possible to get a hit in and still have enough time to reach a wall again. Special mention goes to that stage where a sequence of these invincible worms come crawling down. Position close enough to one of them and repeatedly down-swipe (hitting it with the edge of your attack), and you're almost 100% safe. It's also useful for the boss mentioned (as well as every other enemy that dashes/rolls to you, like Hornet, those 7 rolling "bosses" in the soul sanctum, Lost Kin, or the bad ending final boss) because down-swiping while it dashes you, beyond being a reliable way to deal damage, also bounces you up. The extra height has often gotten me out of harm's way.

This game is incredible and I basically played it straight through to 100%. Some tips about hard portions:

White Palace: Don't attempt this without the hiveblood charm. If you haven't found that, go check out Kingdom's Edge a bit more. Alternatively as someone else mentioned above, grub charm and deep focus help a bunch. There's a number of times you're expected to use the crystal jump and cancel it into a doublejump.

Flower Quest: If you're doing this for 100% anyways, do the grubs first. That charm helps a lot when it comes to keeping safe, and you'll naturally be at 100% health the entire time.

Third Arena: I used hiveblood, a fully upgraded nail, and nailmaster's glory. Usually the spike floor is the hardest part, which is made much easier by learning exactly what each wave contains and when it spawns, and leaping and charge-slashing at the cages that appear before the monsters spawn, usually you'll kill them.

True Final Boss: Believe it or not, spells are your best friend here. I just used the +Spell Damage charm, and two blue life charms. Use the black up-B spell (you can get it by using the white up-B spell on a pedestal in the abyss). When the boss is about to transition to Phase 2 it uses the same ability over and over so you can get some Soul, and then starts at the same place each time. If that strategy is too tough, you can try using quick focus instead and healing in phase 2. Just wait for the circular 3-blast lightbeam attack, stand where a beam spawned on the second blast and start healing.